(Closed) Elope or not to elope?

My fiance are contemplating ditching the wedding plans we’ve been making over the last few months for a wedding we scheduled in May of next year, and instead eloping in a few weeks from now (and maybe still having a party at some point to celebrate with friends and family). I have bought my dress already but it hasn’t come in so if we stick with the decision to elope soon i’ll either lose the money that I spent on that or hopefully gain it back by selling the dress at some point. The other draw back is that not all of our siblings will be around to celebrate the day of with us. We want to use the date we already have booked with our photographer for our engagement session to instead use them for our elopement. Is it silly to base the day of our elopement like that? I thought with the decision to elope it would make things easier but now i don’t know if i’m just making things more complicated. Help!

Faithyk328: it sounds like you have a lot to decide on. if you really want your siblings and parents to be there then do a small wedding with just them and celebrate with others after. Personally, if you already bought the dress I would wait until it arrives and wear it for your elopement. Can your photographer not reschedule? If that is what you were basing the elopement off of then I wouldn’t do it. Think this over, weigh out your pros and cons, the finances and what it reallymeans to you. Don’t rush the idea if it is already sounding too complicated.

Why does he want to elope so soon? Do you feel the same way? Could it just be a transient feelings of frustration? Having deposits on things you have already planned is something to consider in the decision, but on the other hand, you may lose less if you change your plans now. If you want a private ceremony but also want the celebration, you could have a small elopement followed by your celebration at a different time.

craigslistgirl: we both want to elope, it’s not just him. just lately the wedding planning has been more stress than we really want. Also we’re moving in together on December 1st and until recently it wasn’t important to me that we werent going to married while living together but now my thoughts on that have changed and he’s wantEd a simple ceremony from the beginning so it just seems like it works for us. Thanks for responding, it’s helpful to get outside suggestions!

I wish I would have said yes a year ago when Fiance suggested it and we weren’t too far into planning.

If it’s important to have your immediate family there find a different date and reschedule with your photographer. Since you don’t care about the dress if it’s in by then- awesome! If not, that’s ok too! 🙂

Then you can still have a gathering with everyone in May if you still want that. I suggest keeping it simple as the reception/food portion is what I found to be the most stressful part about the planning process.

Thanks! we’d only be missing one sibling each and ultimately I think they would be okay if we just facetimed them in to our little post celebration the day of. I think it could be tough to reschedule the photographer and we just want to do it sooner rather than later, tough time with all the holidays coming up. It’s really nice to get others input though so thank you for taking the time. Good luck with your wedding if it hasn’t already happened!

We did exactly what you are talking about. Half planned a wedding and decided to run away. I am so glad we did. It was just the two of us and it was amazing. We had such a great trip, spent a fraction of what we would have and have great memories. There were no downsides for us.